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Comments from a CEO of one of the worlds largest adult companies.

As a generalisation probably quite accurate.

I am founder and CEO of one of the largest adult orientated companies in the world. My comments are:

1) If you are only offering normal conventional adult material it is much harder to make $$$’s nowadays unless you are an exceptional individual. However, I still know many new start-ups who earn far more as an adult webmaster within one year than they ever will in the corporate world. If your good and know how to do it, then you will still make serious money. The emphasis being ‘good’ – but then doesn’t that apply to any industry? ;)

2) If you offer rich new media – then it is still a high growth market and there is plenty of money to be made. However, only big budget guys have the opportunity to develop the technology to develop rich media applications. (eg. Live video streaming that handles millions of customers, rich media for mobile, ipTV etc..)

3) Although there is still stigma associated with the adult industry it is not as bad as people make out and things are changing. There are a few public companies on USA and European stock exchange who are 100% porn companies. The number of porn companies going IPO is increasing and their market cap is similar to conventional companies – highlighting its acceptance to corporate investors and the public. There is significantly more public companies that derive 70-80% of their income from porn, but simply don’t highlight it ;) …eg Hotel entertainment systems providers, mobile payment processors & content suppliers etc..

4) I would not agree that the big adult companies pay lower than corporate world. It’s just that 90% of adult companies are small. I know quite a few adult companies pay top $ for highly qualified staff, and offer both share options and health insurance ;) High valued branded porn companies are run just as corporately as any blue chip company.

5) One thing you forgot to mention …some adult companies you get to work on world first innovative projects. We were probably the first company in the world who solved DDOS attacks with a budget less than $250,000, and then later helped one of the largest banks in the world to solve theirs ;) We also developed the worlds first live video chat applications for 2.5g and 3g mobile phones, we also developed the worlds first hotel in-room live video chat system etc. .. You also get exposure to some very high traffic ecommerce systems – experience hard to find in a lot of companies, even very large multinationals.

6) It is true that people perceive an issue with working with adult companies, especially corporate career minded, but these are a minority and most understand the commercial aspect after their initial concerns. I have never known a techie being declined for a job because they previously worked in a porn company. Strangely, from my experience the people who have the biggest issue with working in porn related companies are male programmers ;) Women tend to have less of an issue than guys (from my limited experience of interviewing and recruiting a few hundred techies, sales, designers etc. in the adult industry). I frequently receive CV’s from c-level executives of global billion dollar corporations begging to join our company. (doesn’t mean they have the skill set for our type of business, but highlights that it is not as big a barrier as people perceive and we offer comparable salaries to the corporate world)

7) Don’t forget the corporate world had a big stigma with gambling companies 6 years ago in the UK before it became mainstream on the internet ;)

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